Monday, August 29, 2011

When I buy somethng on credit, I have to put up something for collateral. This is the way the business world works. Several years ago I could go to my bank and ask for a loan and I could get it on my word alone. Oner day this all changed, I asked my banker for a small loan and he gave me an application to fill out. I reminded him I had done busines for years without an application. Times have changed, very few can borrow without some kind of collateral.

I began to wonder, with over 10 trillion dollars borrowed from other countries and world banks, what does our government use as collateral. I searche the net and found several answers. Most seem to think that we borrow with just our promise to pay. I think this is naieve.

We are over $10 trillion dollars in debt and we think we can borrow on our word. This is almost more than we can pay now. I wonder how hard my banker would laugh if I would ask to borrow on my word if I owed him more that a million dollars. He would think I was absurd. There has to be something he could reposess to recover his money. These countries and world bank are no different. Want to know what we put up for collateral? Just read the article below. You won't have to read far to understand the situation our country is in! Just click on the link.

http://www.klamathbucketbrigade.org/Whitsett_CollatralizingOurNationalDebt041709.htm
If you read the article, remember this is a US Senator. Not someone who does not know what is going on. He is not naieve! Contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and let them know how you feel about this. Remind the represerntative that the word "representative" means they are to represent you and the people, not their own interest!!

Our American soil is at stake. If our creditors were to call in our note, they would own a portion of our nation larger than the state of Texas. How freightening!!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Aug. 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act. This act was made to provide a retirement for those above the age of 65 yrs. The first taxes collected for this law was Jan. 1937, that was 74 years ago. The law said that the taxes were to be in an "Old Age Account" and to be invested in such investments that drew no less than 3% per annum. This was the act of 1935. If this was invested in such a fund and was placed in a trust, where is the money today.

Assuming that the fund were in a trust and kept up with the markets, there would be plenty to take care of the needs today. That is if it were paid out as outlined. But, there is no money in this account! If there were President Obama could not threaten to hold the Social Security check if we couldn't borrow the money to do so. Where is the trust fund designed to pay these funds? They aren't there! Why? Because our government, that is supposed to look out for our interest, spent it for other things. The government has been spending the money as it came in!

If the politicians had done the job they were elected to do, there would not be a shortage of funds. This money was spent on the stimulus, roads, EPA, defense, etc. (This statement is taken from and article by Craig Steiner entitled "The Truth About Social Security")

There are other reasons that I see as a default to this system. These are called entitlement programs, be paid out to those entitled. Who is entitled, according the the original act, those who earned a wage, the poor, disabled etc. that were U.S. citizens. It is hard to build a fund if it is spent on those that do not contribute.

The solution to the problem, is to elect officials from the President, congress etc that will own up to the problem and reform the system to do what it was designed to do. It would do us well to examine the canidates and email, write or call and let them what we expect.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

I read the following article in a publication I receive. I want to share it with you, I think this is a very important read!

God is not doing very well these days. Here are four reasons. The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither a secularist nor a political agenda.
The more university education a person receives, the more he is likely to hold secular and left-wing views. The secular left argues that this correlation is due to the fact that a college graduate knows more and thinks more clearly and therfore gravitates leftward and toward secularism. But if you believe that the average college graduate is a clear and knowledgeable thinker as a result of his or her time at univesity, I have more than one bridge to sell you.
A radio talk show host for 29 years, I long ago began asking callers who made foolish comments what graduate scool they had attended. It takes higher education to learn to believe that America and Israel are villians, that men and women have essentially the same natures, that human nature is good, that ever larger governments create wealth, etc.
A second reason God is not doing well among Westerners these days is that many members of the Jewish and Christian clergy decided that their primary role was not to advocate their religion's moral and religious standards, but rather (1) to make congregates comfortable ("Don't call me "Pastor" [or "Rabbi" or "Father"], call me Jerry) and (2) to promulgate the values they learned at their secular left-wing universities.
A third reason God is not dong well is that most of the men and women who are products of this secular left-wing education (meaning a large majority of Westen men and women) are theologically, intellectually, and emotionally ill prepared to deal with all the unjust suffering in the world. I will never forget a Swedish pastor's reaction to the 1994 capsizing of the Estonia, a ferry that sank in the Baltic between Estonia and Sweden, leaving 852 passengers and crew dead. He said he could not believe in a God who allowed such injustice to take place.
This pastor spoke for a vast numbers of modern Western men and women. The existance of so much unjust suffering in the world has strongly contributed to their rejecting belief in God. And undoubtedly, the devastation caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami has further reinforced many individuals' rejection of God.
Of course, none of us has a fully coherent solution to the problem of theodicy. But the problem is not exactly new - every great religion has dealt with it, and most of the brilliant minds in history retained their faith in God despite all the unjust suffering they saw.
The difference today is that life has been so good for most Westerners that suffering is no longer regarded as part of life, but as an aberration that can be done away with. Meanwhile, the liberal wings of Christianity and Judaism are too influenced by secularism to make an effective religious case for God, whom the religious left has largely rendered a celestial buddy.
The fourth reason is Islamic violence and the tepid response to it by the liberal churches and synagogues. It would seem pretty clear that a major, albeit almost never acknowledged, reason for the huge audiences for recent books advocating atheism has been the massive amount of evil in God's name committed by radical Muslims. Nothing creates atheism as much as evil done in God's name.
That is why the pathetically weak responses from within the mainstream- i.e., liberal - Christianity, and Judaism have only added to the contempt for God and religion shown by beheadings and suicide bombing in Allah's name. The liberal christian and Jewish responses have been to attack fellow Christians and Jews who have focused on Isalamist terror. Instead of drawing attention to the damage radical Islam does to the name of God, liberal Christians and Jews focus their anger on co-religionists who do speak out on this issue and label them "Islamophobes."
That God is not doing well in the Western world may trouble God. But it is we humans who should be most troubled. the moral, intellectual, artistic, and demographic decline in Western Europe (people in secular countries don't even have the will to reproduce themselves) is only gaining momentum. And the consequernces of that decline will be far more devastationg than all the earthquakes that may come our way.

About Me

Currently pastor of Gageby Baptist Church, since 1982. Have been in ministry since 1962. I post to share my thought on various subjects. I have a Christian worldview, my mission is to share Jesus with the world.